Zanele Muholi at Tate Modern: a 'delightful' yet 'devastating' show

"Confrontational, distressing and, bluntly, off-putting." is how Laura Freeman described the first room of the new Zanele Muholi exhibition at Tate Modern. 

From blood and scars to threesomes and strap-on dildos, the subjects of the South African artist's photographs felt akin to an "ambush" on the senses, she said in The Times. "I couldn't have taken a whole exhibition like it." 

And yet, the show "deserves a chance", said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. At its essence, much of the exhibition is "powerful" and "original". The ongoing series, "Being", for example, portrays an "intimate glimpse" of the daily lives of same-sex couples. There is nothing "titillating" about these images; rather, Muholi shows their subjects in a "tender" light. "The subject isn't queer black life – it's love, plain and simple."

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Muholi has been documenting the lives of South Africa's Black, lesbian, gay, trans and intersex communities for over two decades. The renowned photographer and self-proclaimed "visual activist" uses their work to shine a light on injustice, portraying the lived realities of those who have long been marginalised or written out of history entirely.

An earlier iteration of the show opened for just five weeks back in 2020 before being forced to close due to the winter lockdown during the pandemic. Now, the exhibition is back for an international tour with even more works (there are over 260 photographs on display).

It's been worth the wait, said Ben Luke in the London Evening Standard. The ambitious show cements Muholi's status as "one of the supreme purveyors of photographic art today", with a "remarkable knack" for capturing their subjects with "unflinching directness" and "touching intimacy".

There is, however, just one "bum note" in this "otherwise symphonic" exhibition: Muholi's experimentation with bronze sculptures. Spanning three self-portraits and a representation of the internal anatomy of a clitoris, there's nothing "inherently wrong" with the new works but they fail to conjure the "nuance" and "distinctive beauty" of the photographs that surround them.

The "jewel" of the show, said Annette Richardson in Time Out, is the ongoing series "Somnyama Ngonyama" (which translates as "Hail the Dark Lioness") – a series of highly contrasted black-and-white self portraits in which Muholi "transforms" themselves with a collection of "unexpected props" to explore sexual politics and labour roles.

Oscillating between "delightful and devastating", added Luke in the London Evening Standard, the striking photographs are "one of the greatest exercises in self-portraiture in this, or any, age".

Tate Modern London SE1. Until 26 January 2025